“The Eagle Has Landed”: Relive the Apollo 11 Moon Landing In Real Time

Some remember the moment it happened. How they sat in front of the black-and-white television sets with their families. How their fathers adjusted the rabbit-ear antennas. How their mothers prayed silently. How the images looked grainy, almost ghostly. How, at last, they heard the words that changed history: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed!”

Today, many point to the Apollo 11’s lunar landing on July 20, 1969 as pinnacle of mankind’s spirit for exploration, but few recognize the scale of the mission. What was the mood like in the Mission Control Room in Houston? Whose voices were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin hearing from the base? What glitches were encountered and how were they handled?

How did it all go down?

First Men on the Moon is an interactive website that presents the moon landing in real time—and the audio-visual experience is riveting. Producers from web and software development company Thamtech sifted through hours of public domain content—original Apollo 11 spaceflight video footage, communication audio, mission control room conversations, text transcripts, and telemetry data—to recreate the historic event. What viewers see and hear are crucial moments in the mission—program alarms, the famed “Go/No-Go” polls in the control room, low level fuel milestones, and Armstrong’s heart rate skyrocketing from 119 to 150 during the final descent. It is intense.

Says Charlie Duke, the voice on the radio talking to the crew, as the spacecraft lands: “Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.”